


Mrs Lovegood and the Heliopath

by Dunuelos



Series: Harry Potter, Lone Traveler [3]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 16:00:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20260720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dunuelos/pseuds/Dunuelos
Summary: The Traveler appears at the Rookery





	Mrs Lovegood and the Heliopath

The little girl looked out her window and saw a blue flash. She had been about to sneak down to her mother's workshop; she loved to watch her mother work. When she saw the blue flash, she wondered if it was heliopath, but her father said they were creatures of fire. Shouldn't they be red?

When she looked she saw a man standing looking at her house. She would have to get her mother's attention.

* * *

The woman was working in her cellar workshop. She was a spell tester of some repute. Ministries and others from around the continent contacted her when a spell was invented or a tweak to an existing spell was considered. She would verify the calculations, instructions and compute them against Arithmancy.

Arithmancy had many applications. Many unfamiliar thought it was a form of mathematics. This was not quite true. It really was the study of the magical properties of numbers. The number of syllables in a spell, for example, could be calculated against the intended and predicted effect. If the numbers didn't match magically, the result could be a disaster.

She had been in a rush to complete her current testing. She and her husband had plans to vacation in Sweden. They told their little girl that they were looking for crumple-horned snorkacks, but it was really a romantic getaway.

Before she could begin testing the spell, however, her daughter came into the room talking of a blue flash outside of the Rookery and a man that had appeared. Deciding that the distraction was inevitable, she put away the spell, instructions and the arithmancy work on the spell to see what her daughter was talking about. This would require starting over in some part, but if there was a strange man, perhaps better safe than sorry.

She was led by her daughter to the front door. She looked outside to see a man standing in front of the Rookery in a jacket apparently made of leather. He looked rather lonely – something in his posture.

"Can I help you?" she asked the man as she left the door and approached.

Harry looked toward a woman that so reminded him of Luna Lovegood in front of what looked like Luna's house. He saw a young girl peeking out from the door. He finally answered the woman who appeared to be becoming annoyed, "Ummm, Hello. Can I ask who lives in such a pretty house?" Not very smooth, but he was distracted.

"My family and I do. I didn't catch your name …," the woman was apparently waiting for an answer.

"Gary. Gary Seven," Harry replied, taking the name from a TV show he had once seen. "And your name?"

"Selene Lovegood. Welcome to the Rookery."

Harry was a bit startled. He had never heard Luna actually say her mother's name. "I happened to arrive in the area; I'm not certain why I arrived here …."

"My daughter mentioned a blue light." She was wondering if she could trust this stranger enough to invite him into her home. She had no sense that the man had any malicious intention toward her, but this was her family she had to protect.

"Ah. That's a long story. I'm not really from this … point of reality." Selene was intrigued. "I arrived here for an unknown reason, although there is usually a good one of why I end up where I end up."

"Well, you might as well come in and have some tea." Selene led this "Gary Seven" (and why did his name send shivers through sense for Arithmancy?) inside toward the kitchen. Her daughter peeked out. She motioned for Luna to follow; she would have the man seated and not moving about before she introduced her.

Harry moved into the kitchen and sat down at the table. He could tell the woman was reticent as she kept an eye on him. He saw Luna peeking around the corner again. He decided to call her, "Hello. What is your name?"

Selene turned and saw her daughter and motioned her toward herself, "This is Luna, my daughter."

"Hello, Luna. You remind me of a friend I knew from before." Harry sat back as Selene poured some tea into a saucer in front of him, with Luna behind her leg. "My name is Gary."

"Hello, Gary. Are you a heliopath?" Luna looked at him with such a sense of innocence that he chuckled. "I saw the blue fire and was wondering if you were a new type of heliopath."

"No. No fire here. I'm just a traveler who arrived in an unusual manner."

Selene watched the interaction with interest. She saw no indication that the man thought the question odd at all. "Can you tell us about the blue fire?"

Harry sat back a moment before replying. "Well, I'm what you call an inter-dimensional traveler. A long time ago or a long time from now, depending on your point of view, I started my travels because of a spell that I miscalculated." Selene once more had a sense of foreboding when he mentioned a miscalculation of a spell. "I tried a spell to send me back to correct mistakes I have made, but ended up traveling between different realities. For some reason I am deposited in the different realities in some sort of blue and white light, at least that's what it looks like to me." He smiled at the little girl. "I try to make friends wherever I end up."

Selene blinked. The story fit an old tale that she had read when she was young. Luna looked upon the man and asked with enthusiasm, "Is your name really Gary?" She watched the man's reactions and saw the pain in his eyes. She and her husband taught their daughter to ask questions; they had never taught her when it wasn't appropriate. She was about to guide the conversation away when the name answered.

"No, Luna. You're right. I use different names when I travel because my true name is often well known, and I do not want to create problems for whatever version of myself that might be about. My real name is Harry."

Luna looked fascinated. Selene looked at Harry, wondering who he really was. What Harry was very well known? Her eyes widened as she looked to his forehead and saw an old scar. She had heard of this scar. Harry caught her eye and nodded slightly, indicating that he had seen her recognition, but did not elaborate.

Luna piped up with, "My mum and daddy are taking me to Sweden to look for crumple-horned snorkacks; have you seen any in your travels?" Once again, she was struck by how Gary, no _Harry_, did not find the comment or question odd and spoke to her daughter as though the questions and comments were personally rational and reasonable.

"No. I've head of them of course; never had a chance to go looking for them. When is your trip?"

"Daddy says we're leaving next week. Mummy is finishing her work and Daddy is printing his magazine so that we can go."

"Mrs. Lovegood, what work do you do?" Harry asked curiously. The question didn't match her conclusions – that Harry Potter would know her daughter and they would be friends. If this was the case, why would be now know what she did?

"It's Selene, and I am a spell tester." His eyes clouded for a moment.

"Luna, how old are you?"

"Nine!" She answered with the enthusiasm of a child.

Harry looked back to Selene, "How do you test them?" The man had such intensity when he asked the question that it took her aback for a moment.

"Do you know Arithmancy?"

Harry shook his head. "One of my best friends from a long time ago was into that. I took the easier options."

"Arithmancy is the study of the magical property of numbers. After checking over the spell and what it is supposed to do, I count up various aspects of the spell, and check the numbers to find out if there are any that are incompatible and adjust it as needed."

Harry thought a moment. He remembered long ago hearing of how Luna lost her mother in an accident having to do with her job. So far, he didn't see anything wrong. "Where can it go wrong? And I really mean BADLY wrong."

Selene thought a moment. "Usually it either just doesn't work or it does. The adjustments just affect the power. Very wrong? I'd have to think a moment." She did that. "If a spell had different components that added together to numbers that were massively incompatible. Such things are usually caught when the spell was conceived or originally found from an old source."

"Well, I was just curious." Harry tried to pass it off, but something felt … off. "I thank you for the tea. I really should be going." He began to stand up.

"Do you have a place to stay?" Harry thought about it. He could go the Cauldron, he also had on occasion taken advantage of the Weasley hospitality and they lived fairly close. But he really felt he should stay around here for some reason ….

"Not as such."

"Why don't you stay for dinner? We have room if you are willing to use a camp bed for the night." Harry decided.

"Thank you, Selene. I would appreciate it." Luna looked excited. She begged her mother to allow Luna to show off the camping equipment to their guest. Harry seemed amenable, so Selene allowed Luna to do so.

She began dinner and contemplated the guest that had arrived unexpectedly. She would have to discuss him when her husband arrived.

* * *

Later that night, she was listening to her husband, Xenophilius Lovegood, talk to the man that had appeared earlier. From their daughter's description, Xenophilius (Phil to his wife, Odd to his friends) was interested in how the young man had shown up.

"So, you travel to different realities in a flash of blue light? Fascinating! So what unusual creatures have you met up with?" Phil asked Harry, wondering if some of the creatures he was interested were more easily found in other realities. Luna was also involved in the conversation. "Heliopaths are fire-spirits of Vengence. What kind are you?"

During the discussion, the name of Heliopath was discussed. Apparently Helios was greek for the Sun, Path came from Pathos meaning suffering. Greek was such a fascinating language. It reminded her, for some reason of the spell she had been testing earlier ….

it hit her. The spell she had been testing came from an expedition to the site of Constantinople. British magic was a combination of the ancient Anglo-Saxon and the magic of Rome. For some reason, the language of the spell being Latin didn't make sense as Constantinople was more influenced by the Greek directly and Middle Eastern magics, such as Egyptian.

Suddenly the color drained from her face. She excused herself and went and looked at her notes. Phil and Luna barely noticed, but Harry's eyes seemed to follow her.

The spell was a combination of two older spells. Sweet Hecate! After translating the one that had apparently come from Ancient Greece back to Greek and the one from Ancient Egypt back to Egyptian, she rechecked the Arithmancy formulas. If she had tested the spell as written, the faulty translation would have caused two spells that should never be combined together to become a decidedly suicidal proposition!

She shuddered slightly. She would have to be more careful when checking new combinations of Ancient spells. She had been distracted by trying to finish the task more quickly, she never checked these numbers directly. She went back to the discussion upstairs in a decidedly dazed mode.

Suddenly Harry's look at her caused her to come out of her stupor. "I have an answer to the question from earlier. How can a spell testing go horribly wrong? Mistranslation."

Selene looked at Harry and realized that he had saved her life. His arrival had stopped her from the testing she was about to do. His questions had jogged her memory and had caused her to recheck for things that could be harmful. He had apparently been at the right place at the right time.

"I want to thank you. Your questions from earlier caused me to recheck my work that I had been on. I found an error which would have been disastrous. What can I do to repay you?"

Harry looked at her and nodded. "I remember my friend. She was a delicate thing who had suffered her whole teenage life from the incident where she lost her mother - apparently a spell-related accident. I would want to avoid that for your others." He moved from the table toward the front door. He could feel that he was done. "Just take care of your beautiful and intelligent daughter and live a full life." He turned back toward the door and a noise was heard as he was encased in a pulsing blue aura and he disappeared.

The three Lovegoods sat and stared at the spot that had held such a fascinating and wonderful and sad soul.

Finally Xeno cleared his throat and said, "I think my readers might be interested in hearing about that nice young man."


End file.
